Hail all, xenos, infidels, heretics, demi-gods and assorted immortals, We’re back to our regular State of the Crusade and this time we have some juicy stuff for you. Not just have we started other things, like our weekly twitch shows, more newsletters, encounters with us on the forums, our ongoing Cosplay contest, and the Founders vote for the 5th Eldar Sub-faction – we also have information on the Founders Access so juicy, it blends. And why is this juicy? Because everyone loves more war. It makes unicorns cry and elephants fly. Or die? I’m sure that’s a saying somewhere. So let’s start with the beginning, what we call the Founders Program and what we changed about it in the last months. First, the reason for changes? Focus. Focus, and development velocity, to launch, with less chance of interruptions and unknowns. This is very clever of us. How does this affect you, you might ask? Well, this is a very valid question. I killed the Early Game Access Modules. The small Early Modules were a great idea at the time, have worked great for some other games but for us were becoming a blocker rather than anything else for us, they diverted our focus and caused us in some cases not to move as fast as we wanted. Sorry. An example of some of the Early Game Access Modules was single-person shooting range. I’d rather we’d spend effort on multi-player 16 person friendly fire-team-death-match. But that’s just me. So there you have it. We didn’t really delay these Early Game Access Modules, we killed them outright but their name is pretty close to the concept of “Early Access” unfortunately and it did delay your early shooting in the far future. Which brings us to the next part of the story. We moved our efforts to focus on the long-term goal of actual “Early Access”. Now, in an attempt to lessen confusion, we changed its name to Founder Access, which is actually the old “Pre-Launch Game Access” and is what you would traditionally call Closed Alpha and Closed Beta. Oh, and to be logical, Closed Beta is called Founders Beta. What you see up in the right corner is a purity seal which refers to that Founders Access. Damn we’re getting clever over here. So to further emphasize how big that difference is to you from smaller “Early Game Access Modules” to “Founders Access”, and why it takes longer to make, look at this juicy blend of mildly awesome person-to-person interaction package coming your way based on very fresh high-tech. Warhammer 40K – Eternal Crusade – The Founders Access One map with 32+ players, siege or assault game modes, multiple attack avenues, destructible objects, defensive turrets Space Marine faction with the Dark Angels sub-faction, hopefully more 4 classes, Tactical, Assault, Devastator and Apothecary 3 vehicles, Rhino, Predator & Vindicator Chaos Space Marine faction with the Word Bearers sub-faction, hopefully more 4 classes, Tactical, Raptor, Havoc & Sorcerer 3 vehicles, Chaos Rhino, Chaos Predator & Vindicator Shooting and melee combat with consumables, 10+ weaponry archetypes, ranging from bolt pistols to plasma cannons and load-out system. Combat abilities like psychic powers, buff system, executions, heavy weapons modes, cover system, healing etc. Extensive HUD for situational awareness, character status, scoreboards, squad elements, powers and buff status Maps detailing matches, deployments, waypoints, and objective status Group systems, communication rose, auto-barks and of course squads Me. Yes, you might ask us; Why only one map? Cause that’s enough for us to test what we want to test. There might likely be more but we are very match based right now. Core combat needs to be really great in a universe of constant war. But Nathan, why only two factions with one sub-faction? Because the focus is to test a battle with those 4 classes, with those 4 vehicles, in certain sized battles and game modes. We won’t have ready all classes for all factions to do so. When will there be more factions, maps, classes, weapons, vehicles, game modes? We will be releasing updates well into Founders Beta. This will evolve over time into massive warfare based on how we progress. Fun is important to us, but no promises on when the next [myfavoritething] comes in, since you can play all other factions and classes at any time while waiting. As a Founder, do I get into Founders Access and Founders Beta? Yes, all of them, we give more people access depending on server capacity and other factors. We give access in waves, so it’s Captain and above packages first, and the people that bought first of the Captain+ packages, get first access (“first come, first serve”). Yes, you can upgrade to get into an earlier wave. What’s in Founders Beta? We will not be answering any questions on when it is and what will be in it at this point in time. But it will be heavily based on how Founders Access goes, your feedback and where we think the game should go. Who will win the Super Bowl? I don’t do analog sports. So let’s recap this. Early Game Modules Access does not exist nor does Early Access. Instead you have massive Founders Access, Followed by Founders Beta. And personally, if we manage to hit all that on schedule, I will be damn proud of everyone here. We will be answering further questions about Founders Access in our next weekly twitch so come prepared.
furst Nathan , ég elska þig meira og meira allt sem þú birtir eitthvað Ég elska jafnvel spandex þína , og ógnir hákörlum I blame google translate for any mistakes in that Reading that part about the founder access alone brought a tear to my face
I'll come clean, I didn't like the module approach either. Except for the bit about traveling to Arkhona aboard the transport ships, that was pretty legit.
Me reading this whole post: Only thing is the fear that it doesent drop on Fall 2015 and ends up being another delay. In which case, out comes the nutcracker.
I didn't either lol it seem like it get dry fast and boring Tho the 16v16 gonna be interesting and hopefully they will try and stay on the ball and do release mroe content in a constant flow in order to keep it entertaining for those nerdowells who think it will get boring fast just constant 32 player on same map be boring
Every time i see "state of the" i get the feeling it is bad news coming but i rely like these changes. Id rather wait for a working game than see another game released before its ready.